Agenda item

CONWY AND DENBIGHSHIRE HIGHWAYS AND INFRASTRUCTURE COLLABORATION

Meeting of Cabinet, Tuesday, 23 October 2012 10.00 am (Item 5.)

To consider a report by the Project Manager (copy attached) updating members on progress and outlining recommendations for Cabinet on the future direction of the collaboration.

Decision:

RESOLVED that Cabinet agree:-

(i) because the Business Case does not make a clear case for a fully integrated Highways and Infrastructure Service, Conwy and Denbighshire do not proceed with this option.

(ii) Conwy and Denbighshire continue to look for further opportunities to rationalise management, reduce costs and improve services to our residents by:

Ø Strengthening those areas of sub-service that are under single management

Ø Exploring the Highways and Infrastructure sub-service areas where collaboration might bring benefits to our residents

Ø Exploring local (Authority specific) opportunities for collaboration and joint management arrangements between existing services

Ø Maintaining and developing our commitment to the regional developments on transport which, if delivered well, may secure additional benefits. Decisions will need to be based on a sound business case for change for in respect of such elements and

(iii) the Corporate Directors report back to Cabinet in December 2012 on the work inherent in Recommendation (ii)

Minutes:

Councillor David Smith presented the report for consideration of the recommendations of the Conwy and Denbighshire Highways and Infrastructure Collaboration Programme Board following the consideration of the “Conwy CBC and Denbighshire CC Joint Highways and Infrastructure Fully Integrated Service: Report on the Draft Service Design (September 2012)’ on the 12^th September, 2012.

Councillor David Smith formally extended his gratitude to Danielle Edwards, Regional Project Manager, Conwy County Borough Council, for her hard work in the preparation of the Report. Councillor Smith confirmed both he and Conwy Councillor Mike Priestley had been consulted and kept fully informed throughout the project.

The Chief Executives of both Conwy and Denbighshire had commissioned a working group to consider the available options. The group consisted of two Corporate Directors – Sasha Davies (Conwy County Borough Council) and Hywyn Williams (Denbighshire County Council) supported by Danielle Edwards (Project Manager), S151 Officers and the HR Heads of Service. The options to be considered were as follows:-

Ø Deliver financial savings for both councils without loss of important services to residents

Ø Strengthen the collaborations that the two Local Authorities have committed themselves to at a sub-service level, ie: school transport and street lighting

Ø Consider inter-authority as well as intra-authority options for models of service delivery

Ø Ensure that options for consideration are consistent with regional developments.

The Corporate Directors report would be presented to Cabinet on 18 December 2012.

Danielle Edwards, Project Manager (PM) acknowledged the work of her colleagues in the collation of the report. For the previous two years a project team consisting of staff from both Conwy County Borough Council and Denbighshire County Council had been involved in working on the project. The report was tasked to look into one area of collaboration, that being Highways and Infrastructure. In terms of the actual report, it was recognised there was no clear vision or set of benefits. Therefore, in early April, Managers of Highways and Infrastructure engaged in work which produced a shared vision. Services were the first issue to be looked into. A design workshop had been developed which consisted of Heads of Service and colleagues of the Senior Management Team of both Conwy and Denbighshire. The models were then taken to the Managers of Highways and Infrastructure in Conwy and Denbighshire for their opinion on which section of the model worked and which did not. Once agreement of how the service would look was agreed, then the staffing structure was considered and finally the issue of where the service would be located. Three options were to be considered:-

Ø Option 1 – Re-location of Heath based office staff to the Caledfryn site

Ø Option 2 – Retain both Caledfryn and the Heath sites, reorganising the staff according to service / sub-service areas where appropriate

Ø Option 3 – Staff from the Heath and Caledfryn to be located in a building formerly used as office space (St. Asaph Business Park).

Moving staff to the Heath building was discounted as the building was unsuitable. A new building was also discounted as this would be cost prohibitive.

The relocation of staff would have ICT implications. Section 10 of the report referred to the financial model, which showed prospective costs for the 3 options.

Accommodation costs for each of the three options would be as follows:-

Ø Option 1 – There would be minor accommodation costs moving to Caledfryn

Ø Option 2 – there were no expected additional costs

Ø Option 3 – there would be costs for the lease of a building.

Redundancy costs were shown for year 1. There were to be 9 new posts created. These new posts had been matched to current positions so reducing redundancies to 8.59 FTE (full time employment).

The Leader also thanked the PM for the report and raised the point that the report did not highlight the discussion which had taken place at the Partnerships Scrutiny Committee meeting on 11^th October, 2012.

Councillor David Smith confirmed that the Partnerships Scrutiny Committee had agreed to the recommendations within the report.

CD:C reiterated that full integration was not financially viable for Highways and Infrastructure but collaboration for the future was a possibility. Collaboration between Conwy and Denbighshire was still being assessed. CD:C also confirmed that an in-depth discussion had taken place at the Partnerships Scrutiny Committee meeting whereby they agreed to the recommendations set in the report.

CD:C confirmed that when the updated report was presented at the Partnerships Scrutiny Committee meeting on 5 December then they would be scrutinising recommendation 3.2 within the report especially as to what the staffing implications would be. There was a need to make savings and this was irrespective of collaboration or not. This would be made clearer in December.

Councillor Meirick Lloyd Davies enquired as to why there had been no written report from Partnerships Scrutiny Committee or even sight of the minutes which would have been informative to the Cabinet members.

The Leader confirmed he also would have liked sight of a written report following the Partnerships Scrutiny Committee meeting, but he understood it had been an issue of the timing of the meeting whereby a written report was not available, and the minutes would not be confirmed until the following Partnerships Scrutiny Committee meeting on 8November 2012.

It was agreed that the lack of a written report or even a copy of the minutes following the Partnerships Scrutiny Committee meeting showed a failing within the system. A request was put forward that if an item had been discussed at a specific Scrutiny meeting and was then to be presented at, for example, Cabinet, that there should be some written report of the discussion which had taken place, or even the unconfirmed minutes, to enable Members to be kept fully informed.

Councillor Julian Thompson-Hill congratulated PM on the detailed report presented. With regard to collaboration, Councillor Thompson-Hill confirmed that the idea of collaboration was still the way forward even though full integration on this occasion was not a viable business case.

Councillors expressed their disappointment that the Highways and Infrastructure collaboration between Conwy and Denbighshire would not be going ahead.

Councillor Eryl Williams requested a copy of the letter which had been sent to the Minister, Carl Sargeant, together with a copy of the response received.

The Leader confirmed a response had not yet been received but both letters would be made available to Cabinet members.

The Chief Executive stated that regarding full integration, this had been a key lesson learnt and the fundamental error was that it had been assumed there had been a business case. The merging of services was an expensive project. There were upfront costs, particularly to fund redundancies. Pressure from the Minister would continue to intensify. Drawing up a business plan ensured an improved service and one which should be more economical to run.